


Here in my arms, safe from all harm

by smile667



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Death, Child Abuse, I think that's everything, KId Yondu, Non-Canonical Character Death, Other, POV Child, Pre-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Slavery, Teenage Peter, Violence, but let me know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 00:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smile667/pseuds/smile667
Summary: The woman is staring at him again. She's been doing it non-stop since the Overseer put her in the cage early in the morning. She's blue, has a red fin going from her head, down her back and no birthing marks on her face, so she hasn't been born a slave. All in all, she looks a lot like Yondu thinks he does.





	Here in my arms, safe from all harm

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to write-like-an-american and pixel_runner for critique and beta reading :)
> 
> The title is from "River Lullaby" song from Prince of Egypt (I might be listening to Disney songs way too much).
> 
> Just to make absolutely sure no one gets triggered by anything here: for the most of the story, Yondu is a kid and a Kree slave, with all the abuse and horribleness that comes with that. there is violence and blood and horribly mauled bodies. But there is also a hug.

The woman is staring at him again. She's been doing it non-stop since the Overseer put her in the cage early in the morning. Yondu shifts slightly against the wall of the cage to be able to see her from the corner of his eye and goes back to playing. He names a number on each of his fingers in order - there is one, and then one and one, which is two, and then another extra one makes three. He learned the numbers all on his own - he does a lot of things on his own, he thought of his name by himself too - because you never knew what could come in handy. Yondu thought his teeth growing was some sort of new form of punishment, but they ended up being useful. He gets to fourteen and goes back down to one. He knows there are numbers after fourteen, but that is the number of people in his cage so he never heard the Overseers say what fourteen and one or fourteen and two are. 

He's on the fifth repetition when he sees movement and his head snaps up. The woman has moved closer to him. Yondu wants to move away, but that would mean moving away from the farthest corner from the door, which is the best spot in the whole cage. So he stands his ground and glares at her, his fin going flat against his back. She stays where she is, not moving any closer, and smiles at him. 

She's blue, has a red fin going from her head, down her back and no birthing marks on her face, so she hasn't been born a slave. All in all, she looks a lot like Yondu thinks he does. He's never seen himself, but he can see his skin colour and touch the fin on his head and feel the skin of his face pulling when he moves his lips too much as well as the bumps of the crisscross scars on his cheek. 

She's a lot bigger than he is and has two sacks on her chest, where Yondu has none, but that might be because she's fully grown and Yondu has only been put in the adult cage a few cycles ago. He doesn't even have all of his teeth yet, he doesn't think, because there are still spaces in the back of his mouth. And he's definitely going to grow bigger, the Masters wouldn't have kept him otherwise - no one needs a slave with hands barely big enough to pick up parts of a rifle. 

The woman extends her hand to him and he snaps his teeth before she can think to touch him. She tried that at the very beginning, as soon as she saw him. She put her hand to his birthing scars too quickly for him to react, but he managed to hit her right after when she tried to grab him. It didn't stop her from staring or trying to touch him, but at least she stopped clicking at him after the Overseer hit her with a shock stick. There is a huge cut on her brow now, and a bruise going down all the way to her chin. Yondu doesn't feel sorry for her. She's all grown and she still doesn't know you don't make sounds when the Overseers or the Masters come round? She must be really slow. Yondu isn't sure what speed has to do with being stupid, but that's what one of the Overseers said about Carty when she couldn't put her blaster together correctly, right before he shot her in the head, so it must mean not learning right. 

She keeps her hands to herself after that, but she still sits as close as she can without making Yondu too tense and stares at him throughout the day. Then she starts clicking and whistling at him again during the late meal. According to the rules, each slave should get half a ration bar, but it's usually cut down depending on which Overseer handles them out, what their mood is and if they find fault with the slaves' behaviour. Yondu lucks out and only gets punished for getting up to get his ration instead of crawling so he gets half of a half of a half. That's enough for three whole bites! And the Overseer doesn't even throw it into the dirt, letting Yondu catch it instead. It still tastes like dust, but at least Yondu can chew it and keep his mouth busy. In the baby cages, they were fed a dust-tasting sludge which they had to eat with their fingers out of a communal bowl. He puts all three bites into his mouth at once so no one can take it from him and starts chewing. He counts each time he moves his mouth and swallows a little bit every three fourteens. It takes twelve fourteens and a three to eat all of it and by then the Overseers are doing the last count and the woman goes quiet when they get close. 

As soon as the lights are shut off, Yondu rolls into a ball and squeezes even more into his corner. He snaps back up when he hears shuffling next to him. It's the woman again. She's probably going to hit him now for all the times Yondu almost bit her during the day, she's had a whole day of observing him to plan her attack. And Yondu can't move away now, he can't really see the other slaves in the cage and if he bumps into them they're all going to make too much noise and bring the Overseer down. So he stays still and quiet as she touches him again.

Her hands don't hurt. She just strokes his cheek and then his head, right by the fin. When Yondu relaxes slightly, realising that is all she wants to do, she moves in closer and pulls him onto her lap. She's very warm and soft, and her arms hold him tightly to her chest, one hand caressing his head and the other rubbing his back. Yondu wants to stay awake and alert, something this nice can never last long, but when she starts to hum quietly, making her chest vibrate under Yondu's head, he's asleep before the first sound even finishes. 

 

 

In the morning, even before the early meal, Yondu and the woman get ordered out of the cage. Yondu gets out quickly enough that he only gets a single slap, but she has to be dragged out. She's clicking at the Overseers now, part angry, part scared. Yondu doesn't look at her, just in case the Overseers think he agrees with her behaviour.

They get taken into the arena and Yondu's heart sinks. That's it then. He's not likely to survive this, he's too small to win against an adult or run away from a monster. His chances get a little better when several other small ones walk into the arena, followed by more grown-ups. The woman tries to touch him and take his hand, but Yondu moves away, keeping a careful eye on the Overseers. She's gonna get him in trouble.

The Overseer puts a bucket full of blades in front of his face and Yondu pulls one out at random. It doesn't really matter, they are obviously not expected to survive if all they get to protect themselves is that. When the Overseer leaves the arena, there is a little commotion in the seats above them - Yondu doesn't look, anyone who can get a private show at the main arena would probably kill a slave for making eye contact - and one of the big gates at the end of the arena slowly opens. And a bilgesnipe jumps out.

It's huge. There are scars all over its body, as well as some unhealed wounds and burn marks. It only has one horn, its eyes are all red and crazed and its roar makes the whole structure around them shake. It sees them and stops for just a second, before leaning back on its hind legs and jumping. He's halfway to them before Yondu can blink. He tightens his grip on his knife and shifts his feet. Then the whole world tilts around him. 

He's on the ground, something big on top of him. For one second, he thinks he's about to get ripped apart by the bilgesnipe until he realises all he can see is blue skin. It's that woman again, she's pinning him to the ground. She's probably trying to cripple him and then leave him as bait so she can get away. Yondu pushes her with all his strength, trying to wriggle out from under her, but he can't even make her twitch. She just tightens her arms around him and starts to click into his ear. It's the same sounds over and over again, interrupted only by laboured breaths and shutting out everything else that's happening in the arena. Her voice gets softer and softer as time passes until she goes quiet completely and Yondu can't feel her breath on his face anymore. 

 

 

He gets pulled from under the body by one of the cleaning slaves after what feels like hours - but knowing how quickly a bilgesnipe can go through an armed squad, not to mention a few (fourteen and four, he counted when they were all lined up at the beginning) slaves with barely any weapons - was probably minutes. Yondu looks down on the blue body that has kept him hidden from the monster attacking them, leaving him as the only survivor on the arena's floor. She- It's covered in gouges, some so deep Yondu can see broken bones sticking out within the mass of blue flesh and blood. It's missing a leg as well and Yondu looks around them, for some reason needing the body to be whole again. He sees a scrap of blue flesh a little away from where he is standing. He moves to get it and bring it back, but the cleaning slave's hand tightens on his collar and he pulls Yondu onto the ground, pressing his face into the ground. Yondu starts to struggle when he hears the footsteps and the sharp sounds of the Masters' language. He goes very still after that, not even trying to shift into the proper Position of Obedience, remaining sprawled in the dirt next to the other slave. 

"You were right. I wasn't expecting it to be this entertaining. The lower life forms usually spend too much time huddling and screaming to provide a good enough performance," one voice says, his words so clipped Yondu can barely understand them. 

"Just as we promised, Accuser," a colder voice replies. The very tone of it would make Yondu shiver if he didn't know that making any movements in the presence of the Masters is a sure way of getting whipped, which Yondu is too little to survive. And he can't die now, not while the blood of the woman who saved his life is still warm under his hands. 

"It is the same for all animals," says another person, this one with a voice Yondu vaguely recognises. The Master must have been one of the people that watched the training in the baby cages and decided who was big and strong enough to be sent to the adult cages. "They will fight anything, even when the chances of winning are miniscule if it's to protect their spawn. We've noticed it-"

 

 

Yondu comes back to himself suddenly. There are shots being fired over him, men screaming behind him and a not-so-little Terran under him. 

"What are you doing?" he asks the boy, jumping to his feet and pulling the kid up.

Quill frowns at him and pushes his hands away. Ungrateful brat. Yondu was only making sure the dazed look in the boy's eyes was just usual, teenage stupidity rather than a head wound. "I haven't done nothing! You're the one who jumped at me!"

Yondu frowns back at him, and then he remembers. They got attacked on their way back from the job and he saw something dangerous - judging by the ringing in his ears, him losing track of the situation for so long and the general confusion around them it was a sonar granade - and shoved the kid to the ground to protect him- His thoughts stutter to a stop there as he realises why it brought out a memory from decades ago.

"Yondu?" Quill is looking at him, scowl turning into worry. Too sentimental by far, this boy of his.

"I'm fine, boy. You still got the loot?"

Quill nods and pats his jacket. Yondu grabs his collar and pushes him into the alley they've been retreating into and turns back to yell at the rest of his men. Most of them are already moving in his direction, few lying around dead or too wounded to move. Yondu whistles, covering the fleeing Ravagers and keeping the Corpsmen away from them. It's a good thing he doesn't really have to think about what he's doing because all that's in his head are the words a long-dead woman said to him in Centaurian. He can only understand a couple of them since his study of Centaurian after Stakar freed him focused mostly on swear words and sexual invitations. 

He scans the street for the last time and finding it empty of any moving red-clad people, he whistles his arrow back and follows his crew. They get to the ship without much incident and they're up in the air within minutes of Yondu getting on board. Kraglin at work there, none of the rest of the idiots would have thought to keep the engines running in preparation for the escape. The docking into the Eclector is pretty damn flawless as well, so most definitely Kraglin at the helm. 

Yondu's out of the ship as soon as they're secured, but he barely makes it out of the hangar before Kraglin catches up to him with a data pad under his arm and a full list of things to do. Yondu tries to ignore him, but the beanpole is too into his work to notice. 

"-So that's seven casualties, Cap'n, after this high-speed atmosphere flight we might need to-"

"Uh-huh, that's great, Krags. Why doncha take care of it?" Yondu interrupts, waving his hand in front of the biometric panel and going into his cabin. He whirls around to stand in the doorway and block Kraglin who tries to follow him in. "Just make sure that damn surgeon don't cut off too many limbs."

"But, sir-"

"Later, Obfonteri. I need ta do somethin'. You handle it fer now."

"Sir-"

The rest of the sentence gets cut off as Yondu's very-well reinforced door slides shut behind him. Kraglin can take care of the ship and the crew for a little bit. If someone forced him, Yondu could even admit that Kraglin is probably better at dealing with the crew than he is. Or rather Krags is better at not killing them if they whine too much, or complain about things or breathe too loudly. 

Yondu kicks his console on and throws himself onto the chair. Although the piece of crap machines takes so long to turn on Yondu is half-ready to give up on privacy and go up to the bridge to use the computer there, the dumb machine does come alive eventually. He opens the translator - a much more advanced version of the one everyone carries around in their heads, that Stakar actually bought for him decades ago to allow him to learn Centaurian. Yondu hasn't used it since Quill was eight and still had a temporary translator on, which didn't work more often than it did. Fortunately, Yondu's program contained languages from all over, including a backwater hole like Terra, and he managed to communicate with the boy through it. It meant having to spend time with the brat, but at least they didn't have to listen to Terran-flavoured screams for the two weeks it took them to get to Knowhere. 

Yondu changes the settings from Terran "Egrish" to Centaurian and closes his eyes to bring the memory of the woman protecting him back again. He repeats the words she has told him that day over and over and doesn't open his eyes until the translator beeps at him. He reads out the words that appear on the screen and laughs. Well, isn't this just perfect? The words he's wanted to hear his whole life have been said at the very beginning of it and he's forgotten it for all these years. 

He closes his eyes again and goes back to his memory, trying to recall the exact sound of the woman's voice as she whispered to him all those years ago. 

"Don't be scared, heart, everything will be alright. Mama won't let anything hurt you."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for that, it just wouldn't stay in my head. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are, of course greatly, appreciated :)


End file.
